The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.
The whole macho thing has to be reexamined. Because in my view, the Bush administration was weak, not strong. To engage in a policy of torture is a weak policy. Because ultimately, it encourages the terrorists. It undermines our own values. It corrupts our system. And it doesn't get good intelligence.
I am very lucky that I get to go to work and laugh all day for my day job, and then go home and torture my artistic self.
I can't look at people's wrists. Something about the veins makes me weak. My siblings used to torture me with that because they knew it was the thing I couldn't handle. They would stick their wrists in my face.
I have this system. I torture my husband and everyone around me with my nerves and anxiety. Then, when I get on stage, the fear is gone. I've exhausted myself. It just dissipates.
To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see. The Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't believe that.
One should also remember that the U.S. is the biggest exporter of torture weapons in the world, though the U.K. is not far behind in the league table. We never stopped, even under Robin Cook's supposedly ethical foreign policy.
I think most diets are torture, which is why I don't believe in them. But, as is true with exercise, when you make a change and feel the benefits, you want to stick with it.
You don't torture people. You don't indiscriminately attack civilians. You protect as good as you can the impact of your warfare on women and children.
Looking back, I didn't have the patience to work in fashion. I like women so much, but I was never qualified to torture them in photo shoots. You have to be really tough and brutal.
When we go to war, our politicians will be guided by our popular will. And if we believe that torture 'got' bin Laden, then we will be more prone to accept the view that a good 'end' can justify brutal 'means.'
There's just no doubt in my mind - under any set of rules - water boarding is torture.
There is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don't prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn't prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people.
